Oblomov (42 page)

He sighed. The
perhaps
damped his spirits and he walked slowly and thoughtfully after her. But he felt more lighthearted at every step; the
mistake
he had invented at night seemed so far away. ‘Why,’ it occurred to him, ‘it is not only love, all life is like this. And if every opportunity is to be rejected as a mistake, when is one to be sure that one is not making a mistake? What was I thinking of? I seem to have gone blind.…’

‘Olga,’ he said, barely touching her waist with two fingers (she stopped), ‘you’re wiser than I am.’

She shook her head.

‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m simpler and more courageous. What are
you afraid of? Do you seriously think one may fall out of love?’ she asked, with proud confidence.

‘Now I’m not afraid, either!’ he said cheerfully. ‘With you I do not fear the future.’

‘I’ve read that phrase somewhere recently – in Sue, I think,’ she suddenly said, with irony, turning towards him, ‘only there, it’s a woman who says it to a man.…’

Oblomov flushed.

‘Olga,’ he implored, ‘let everything be as yesterday. I’ll never be afraid of
mistakes.’

She said nothing.

‘Well?’ he asked timidly.

She said nothing.

‘Well, if you don’t want to say it, give me some sign – a sprig of lilac.…’

‘The lilac – is over!’ she replied. ‘You can see for yourself – it’s all withered.’

‘It’s over – withered!’ he repeated, looking at the lilac. ‘It’s all over with the letter, too!’ he said suddenly.

She shook her head. He walked after her, thinking about the letter, yesterday’s happiness, the withered lilac.

‘The lilac is certainly withered!’ he thought. ‘Why did I send that letter? Why didn’t I sleep all night and why did I write it in the morning? Now that my mind is at rest again’ (he yawned) ‘… I feel awfully sleepy. If I hadn’t written the letter, nothing of this would have happened: she wouldn’t have cried, everything would have been as yesterday, we should have sat quietly in this avenue, looking at each other and talking of happiness. And it would have been the same to-day, and tomorrow…’ he gave a big yawn.

Then he suddenly began to wonder what would have happened if his letter had achieved its object, if she had agreed with him, if she had been afraid of mistakes and future distant storms, if she had listened to his so-called experience and common sense and agreed that they should part and forget each other. Heaven forbid! To say good-bye, to return to town, to a new flat! To be followed by an interminable night, a dull tomorrow, an unbearable day after to-morrow, and a long succession of days, each more colourless than the last.… He could not allow that to happen! That was death! And it would most certainly have happened! He would have fallen ill. He had never wanted to part from her, he could not have endured it, he would have come and implored her to see him.

‘Why, then, did I write that letter?’ he asked himself.

‘Olga Sergeyevna,’ he said.

‘What do you want?’

‘I must add one more confession – –’

‘What?’

‘Why, there was no need for that letter at all!’

‘Oh yes, there was,’ she decided.

She looked round and laughed when she saw the face he made, how his drowsiness had suddenly vanished, and how he opened his eyes wide with astonishment.

‘Was there?’ he repeated, slowly fixing his gaze at her back, with surprise.

But all he could see were the two tassels of her cloak. What, then, was the meaning of her tears and reproaches? It was not cunning, was it? But Olga was not cunning – he saw that clearly. It was only women of comparatively low mentality who were cunning or subsisted on cunning. Possessing no real intelligence, they set the springs of their petty, everyday lives in motion by means of cunning, and wove, like lace, their domestic policies without suspecting the existence of the main currents of life, their points of intersection and their direction. Cunning was like a small coin with which one could not buy a great deal. Just as a small coin could keep one going for an hour or two, so cunning might help to conceal or distort something or to deceive someone, but it was not sufficient to enable one to scan a far horizon or to survey a big event from beginning to end. Cunning was short-sighted: it saw well only what was happening under its nose, but not at a distance, and that was why it was often caught in the trap it had set for others. Olga was simply intelligent: how easily and clearly she had solved the problem to-day, and, indeed, any problem! She grasped the true meaning of events at once and she reached it by a direct road. While cunning was like a mouse, running round and round everything and hiding.… Besides, Olga’s character was different. So what was the meaning of it? What was it all about?

‘Why was the letter necessary?’ he asked.

‘Why?’ she repeated, turning round to him quickly with a gay face, delighted that she could nonplus him at every step. ‘Because,’ she began slowly,’ you did not sleep all night and wrote it all for me. I too am an egoist! This is in the first place – –’

‘Then why did you reproach me just now, if you now agree with me?’ Oblomov interrupted.

‘Because you invented these torments. I did not invent them,
they simply came, and I am glad that they have gone, but you prepared them and enjoyed it all beforehand. You’re wicked! That is why I reproached you. Then – your letter shows feeling and thought – last night and this morning you lived not in your usual way, but as your friend and I wanted you to live – that’s in the second place; thirdly – –’

She walked up so close to him that the blood rushed to his heart and his head; he began to breathe hard, with excitement. She looked him straight in the eyes.

‘Thirdly, because in this letter is reflected as in a mirror your tenderness, your solicitude, your care for me, your fear for my happiness, your pure conscience – everything Mr Stolz pointed out to me in you, that made me love you and forget your laziness – your apathy. You revealed yourself in your letter without wishing to do so. You’re not an egoist, you didn’t write it because you wanted to part from me – you did not want that, but because you were afraid to deceive me. It was your honesty that spoke in it, otherwise your letter would have offended me and I should not have cried – from pride! You see, I know why I love you, and I am not afraid of a mistake: I am not mistaken in you!’

She looked radiant and magnificent as she said this. Her eyes shone with the triumph of love, with the consciousness of her power; her cheeks were flushed. And he – he was the cause of it! It was an impulse of his honest heart that had kindled this fire in her soul, inspired this outburst of feeling, this brilliance.

‘Olga, you’re better than any woman in the world, you’re one of the best!’ he said, ecstatically, and, beside himself, put out his arms and bent over her. ‘For God’s sake – one kiss as a pledge of ineffable happiness,’ he whispered as in a delirium.

She instantly drew back a step; the triumphant radiance, the colour left her face, and her gentle eyes blazed sternly.

‘Never! Never! Don’t come near me!’ she said in alarm, almost in horror, stretching out both arms and her parasol to keep him at a distance and standing motionless, as though rooted to the spot, without breathing, in a stern attitude, and looking sternly at him, her head half turned.

He sobered down suddenly: it was not the gentle Olga who stood before him, but an offended goddess of pride and anger with compressed lips and lightning in her eyes.

‘I’m sorry!’ he muttered in confusion, feeling utterly crushed.

She turned slowly and walked on, glancing fearfully over her shoulder to see what he was doing. But he was doing nothing: he
was walking slowly like a dog that had been scolded and that was walking with its tail between its legs. She had quickened her pace, but seeing his face, suppressed a smile, and walked on more calmly, though still shuddering from time to time. The colour came and went in her cheeks. As she walked, her face cleared, her breathing became more even and quieter, and once more she proceeded on her way with measured steps. She saw how sacred her ‘never’ was to Oblomov, and her fit of anger subsided gradually and gave way to pity. She walked slower and slower. She wanted to soften her outburst and she was trying to find some excuse for speaking.

‘I’ve made a mess of everything! That was my real mistake. “Never!” Good God! The lilac has withered,’ he thought, looking at the flowers on the tree. ‘Yesterday has withered, too, and the letter has withered, and this moment, the best in my life, when a woman has told me for the first time, like a voice from heaven, what good there is in me, has also withered!’

He looked at Olga – she stood, waiting for him, with lowered eyes.

‘Please, give me the letter,’ she said softly.

‘It has withered!’ he replied sadly, giving her the letter.

She drew close to him once more and bent down her head; her eyes were closed. She was almost trembling. He gave her the letter; she did not raise her head or move away.

‘You frightened me,’ she added softly.

‘I’m sorry, Olga,’ he murmured.

She said nothing.

‘This stern “never!”…’ he said sadly and sighed.

‘It will wither!’ she said in a barely audible whisper, and blushed.

She cast a shy, tender glance at him, took both his hands, pressed them warmly in hers, and then put them to her heart.

‘Do you hear how fast it is beating?’ she said. ‘You frightened me! Let me go!’

And without looking at him, she turned round and ran along the path, lifting the hem of her skirt lightly.

‘Where are you off to?’ he cried. ‘I’m tired, I can’t keep up with you.’

‘Leave me,’ she repeated with burning cheeks. ‘I’m running to sing, sing, sing! There’s such a tightness in my chest that it almost hurts me!’

He remained standing and gazed after her a long time, as if she were an angel that was flying away.

‘Will the moment wither too?’ he thought almost sadly, and he did not seem to know whether he was walking or standing.

‘The lilacs are over,’ he thought again. ‘Yesterday is over, and the night with its phantoms and its stifling horrors is over too.… Yes, and this moment will also be gone like the lilac. But while last night was drawing to a close, this morning was beginning to dawn.’

‘What is it, then?’ he said aloud in a daze. ‘And love too – love? And I had thought that like a hot noonday sun it would hang over lovers and that nothing would stir or breathe in its atmosphere; but there is no rest in love, either, and it moves on and on like all life, Stolz says. And the Joshua has not yet been born who could tell it: “Stand still and do not move!” What will happen to-morrow?’ he asked himself anxiously and wistfully, and walked home slowly.

Passing under Olga’s windows he heard the strains of Schubert in which her tightened chest found relief and seemed to be sobbing with happiness.

Oh, how wonderful life was!

11

A
THOME
Oblomov found another letter from Stolz, which began and ended with the words: ‘Now or never!’ It was full of reproaches for his immobility and included an invitation to come to Switzerland, where Stolz himself was going, and then to Italy. If Oblomov could not manage it, Stolz suggested that he should go to the country to see to his affairs, rouse his peasants to work, find out the exact amount of his income, and give the necessary orders for the building of the new house. ‘Remember our agreement: now or never,’ he concluded. ‘Now, now, now!’ Oblomov repeated. ‘Andrey does not know what a wonderful thing has happened in my life. What more does he want from me? Could I possibly be as busy as I am now? Let him try it! You read about the French and the English being always busy working, just as if they had nothing but business in mind. They travel all over Europe, and even in Asia and Africa, and not on business, either: some draw or paint, some excavate antiquities, some shoot lions or catch snakes. If they don’t do that, they sit at home in honourable idleness, have lunches and dinners with friends and ladies – that is what all their business
amounts to! Why should I be expected to work hard? All Andrey thinks of is work and work, like a horse! Whatever for? I have plenty to eat and I’m decently dressed. Still, Olga did ask me again if I meant to go to Oblomovka.…’

He threw himself into work. He wrote, made plans, even paid a visit to an architect. Soon the plan of the house and the garden lay on his little table. It was a large, roomy house with two balconies. ‘Here is my room, here is Olga’s, there’s the bedroom, the nursery…’ he thought with a smile. ‘But, dear me, the peasants, the peasants…’ and the smile disappeared and he frowned. ‘My neighbour writes to me, goes into all sorts of details, talks of land to be put under the plough, the yield of grain per acre.… What a bore! And he proposes that we should share the expense of making a road to a big trading village, and a bridge over a stream, asks for three thousand roubles and wants me to mortgage Oblomovka.… How do I know it is really necessary? If any good will come of it? He isn’t trying to cheat me, is he? I daresay he is an honest man – Stolz knows him – but he may be mistaken, and my money will be lost! Three thousand – it’s a lot of money! Where am I to get it? No, it’s too risky! He also writes that some of the peasants ought to be settled on the waste-land, and demands an answer at once – everything, it seems, must be done at once. He undertakes to send me all the documents for the mortgage of the estate. Send him a deed of trust and go to the courts to have it witnessed – what next! And I have no idea where the courts are and which door to try when I get there.’

Oblomov did not answer his neighbour’s letter for a fortnight, and in the meantime even Olga asked him if he had been to the courts. A few days earlier Stolz sent a letter to him and one to Olga, asking what he was doing. Olga, no doubt, could keep only a superficial watch over her friend’s doings, and that, too, only in her own sphere. She could tell whether he looked happy, went everywhere readily, came to the woods at the appointed hour, was interested in the latest news or general conversation. She kept a particularly anxious watch that he did not lose sight of his main purpose in life. If she did ask him about the courts, it was only because she had to answer Stolz’s questions about the affairs of their friend.