Oblomov (47 page)

‘No,’ he thought, ‘I must run to Olga. I can’t think and feel by myself. I’ll tell everyone, the whole world – no, just her aunt, then the baron; I shall write to Stolz – he will be surprised! Then I’ll tell Zakhar: he will fall at my feet and howl with joy. I shall give him twenty-five roubles. Anisya will come and try to kiss my hand: I’ll give her ten roubles – then – then I shall shout for joy in a loud voice so that the whole world will hear and say: “Oblomov is happy, Oblomov is getting married!” Now I’ll run to Olga – we shall sit and whisper together for hours, making our secret plans to merge our two lives into one!’

He ran off to Olga. She listened to his dreams with a smile, but as soon as he jumped up to run and tell her aunt, she knit her brows in a way that alarmed him.

‘Not a word to anyone!’ she said, putting a finger to her lips
and begging him to speak lower so that her aunt should not hear in the next room. ‘The time hasn’t come yet!’

‘Hasn’t the time come now that everything has been decided between us?’ he asked impatiently. ‘What are we to do now? How are we to begin? We can’t just sit and do nothing. We must think of our duties – serious life is beginning….’

‘Yes, it is,’ she agreed, looking searchingly at him.

‘Well, so I’d like to take the first step – go to your aunt and – –’

‘That’s the last step.’

‘Which is the first, then?’

‘The first – to go to the courts: you have to write some document, haven’t you?’

‘Yes – to-morrow – –’

‘Why not to-day?’

‘To-day – to-day is a very special day, and I can’t leave you, Olga, can I?’

‘Very well, to-morrow. And then?’

‘Then tell your aunt, write to Stolz.’

‘No, then you must go to Oblomovka…. Mr Stolz wrote to you what you had to do in the country, didn’t he? I don’t know what business you have there – building, is it?’ she asked, looking into his face.

‘Good Lord,’ said Oblomov, ‘if we are to listen to what Stolz says we’ll never get as far as telling your aunt! He says that I must begin building the house, then construct the road, then open schools!… You won’t do that in a lifetime. Let’s go there together, Olga, and then – –’

‘But where shall we go to? Is there a house there?’

‘No – the old house isn’t good enough; I expect the front steps must have collapsed by now.’

‘So where shall we go to?’ she asked.

‘We’ll have to find a flat here.’

‘For that you’ll also have to go to town,’ she observed. ‘That’s the second step.’

‘Then – –’ he began.

‘I think you’d better take the two steps first and then – –’

‘What’s all this?’ Oblomov thought mournfully. ‘No whispering for hours, no secret plans to merge our two lives into one! Everything has turned out differently somehow. What a strange girl Olga is! She never stands still, she never indulges in romantic dreams even for a moment, just as though she’d never dreamed in her life, just as though she never felt the need of
giving herself up to day-dreaming! Go to the courts at once – look for a flat! Just like Andrey! They all seem to have conspired to be in a hurry to live!’

Next day he went to town, taking with him a piece of stamped paper to settle his business at the courts: he drove to town reluctantly, yawning and gazing about him. He did not know where exactly the courts were, and called first on Ivan Gerasimovich to ask in which department he had to witness the signature of the deed of trust. Ivan Gerasimovich was very glad to see Oblomov and would not let him go without lunch. Then he sent for a friend to find out from him how the business was to be done, for he himself had got out of touch with such things. The lunch and the consultation were over only by three o’clock. It was too late for the courts, and the following day was Saturday and the courts would be closed, so that it all had to be put off till Monday.

Oblomov went to his new flat in Vyborg. He spent a long time driving along narrow lanes with long wooden fences on either side. At last he found a policeman who told him that the house was in a different part of the suburb, and he pointed to a street where there were only fences and no houses, with grass growing in the road, which was full of ruts made of dried mud. Oblomov drove on, admiring the nettles by the fences and the rowan-berries peeping out from behind them. At last the policeman pointed to a little old house standing in a yard, adding: ‘That’s it, sir.’ ‘The house of the widow of the Collegiate Assessor Pshenitzyn’, Oblomov read on the gate, and told the driver to drive into the yard.

The yard was the size of a room, so that the shaft of the carriage struck a corner and frightened a number of hens that scattered cackling in all directions, some even attempting to fly; a big black dog on a chain began to bark furiously, rushing to right and left and trying to reach the horses’ muzzles. Oblomov sat in the carriage on a level with the windows, finding it rather hard to get out. In the windows, crowded with pots of mignonette and marigolds, several heads could be seen looking out. Oblomov managed to get out of the carriage; the dog barked more fiercely than ever. He walked up the front steps and ran into a wrinkled old woman wearing a
sarafan
tucked up at the waist.

‘Who do you want?’ she asked.

‘The landlady, Mrs Pshenitzyn.’

The old woman bent her head in bewilderment.

‘Are you sure it isn’t Ivan Matveyevich you would like to see?’
she asked. ‘I’m afraid he isn’t at home. He hasn’t come back from the office yet.’

‘I want to see the landlady,’ said Oblomov.

Meanwhile the hubbub in the house continued. Heads kept peeping out of windows; the door behind the old woman kept opening and closing and different people looked out. Oblomov turned round: in the yard two children, a boy and a girl, stood regarding him with curiosity. A sleepy peasant in a sheepskin appeared from somewhere and, screening his eyes from the sun, gazed lazily at Oblomov and the carriage. The dog kept up a low and abrupt barking and every time Oblomov moved or a horse stamped, it began jumping about on its chain and barking continuously. On the right, over the fence, Oblomov saw an endless kitchen garden planted with cabbages, and on the left, over the fence, he could see several trees and a green wooden summer-house.

‘Do you want Agafya Matveyevna?’ the old woman asked. ‘Why?’

‘Tell the landlady that I want to see her,’ said Oblomov. ‘I have taken rooms here.’

‘So you are the new lodger, Mr Tarantyev’s friend, are you? Wait, I’ll tell her.’

She opened the door, and several heads drew back hastily and rushed away into the inner rooms. He managed to catch sight of a white-skinned, rather plump woman, with a bare neck and elbows and no cap on, who smiled at having been seen by a stranger. She, too, rushed away from the door.

‘Please come in, sir,’ said the old woman, coming back, and she led Oblomov through a small entrance hall into a fairly large room and asked him to wait. ‘The lady of the house will be here presently,’ she added.

‘And the dog is still barking,’ thought Oblomov, examining the room.

Suddenly his eyes lighted on familiar objects: the whole room was littered with his belongings. Tables covered in dust; chairs heaped in a pile on the bed; mattresses, crockery, cupboards – all thrown together in confusion.

‘What on earth? Haven’t they done anything about them – sorted them out, tidied them up?’ he said. ‘How disgusting!’

Suddenly a door creaked behind him, and the woman he had seen with the bare neck and elbows came into the room. She was about thirty. Her complexion was so fair and her face so plump that it seemed that the colour could not force its way through
her cheeks. She had practically no eyebrows, and in their place she had two seemingly slightly swollen shiny patches with scanty fair hair on them. Her eyes were grey and as good-humoured as the whole expression of her face; her hands were white but coarse, with knotted blue veins standing out. She wore a close-fitting dress, and it was quite obvious that she used no artifice, not even an extra petticoat, to increase the size of her hips and make her waist look smaller. That was why even when she was dressed, as long as she wore no shawl she would without any danger to her modesty serve a sculptor or a painter as a model of a fine, well-developed bosom. In comparison with her smart shawl and Sunday bonnet, her dress looked old and worn.

She had not been expecting visitors, and when Oblomov asked to see her, she threw on her Sunday shawl over her ordinary everyday dress and covered her head with a bonnet. She came in timidly and stopped, looking shyly at Oblomov.

He got up and bowed.

‘I have the pleasure of meeting Mrs Pshenitzyn, have I not?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir,’ she replied. ‘Would you perhaps like to speak to my brother?’ she asked hesitantly. ‘I’m afraid he is at the office. He never comes home before five.’

‘No, it was you I wanted to see,’ Oblomov began when she had sat down on the sofa as far away from him as possible, looking at the ends of her shawl which covered her down to the ground like a horse-cloth. She hid her hands under the shawl too.

‘I have rented rooms, but now, owing to certain circumstances, I have to find a flat in another part of the town, so I have come to discuss the matter with you.’

She listened to him dully and fell into thought.

‘I’m afraid my brother isn’t in,’ she said after a pause.

‘But this house is yours, isn’t it?’ Oblomov said.

‘Yes,’ she replied briefly.

‘Well, in that case you ought to be able to decide for yourself, oughtn’t you?’

‘But my brother isn’t in, and he attends to everything,’ she said monotonously, looking straight at Oblomov for the first time and then lowering her eyes to the shawl again.

‘She has an ordinary but pleasant face,’ Oblomov decided condescendingly. ‘Must be a good woman!’

At that moment a little girl’s head was thrust through the door. Agafya Matveyevna nodded to her sternly without being observed by Oblomov, and she disappeared.

‘And in what Ministry does your brother work?’

‘In some Government office.’

‘Which one?’

‘Where peasants are registered. I’m afraid I don’t know what it’s called.’

She smiled good-naturedly, and almost at once her face assumed its normal expression.

‘Do you live here alone with your brother?’ asked Oblomov.

‘No, I have two children by my late husband, a boy aged eight and a girl aged six,’ the landlady began talking readily enough and her face became more animated, ‘and we have also our grandmother living with us; she’s an invalid and can hardly walk, and she only goes to church; she used to go to the market with Akulina, but she has given it up since St Nicholas’ day: her legs have begun to swell. And even in church she has to sit on the steps most of the time. That is all. Sometimes my sister-in-law stays with us and Mr Tarantyev.’

‘And does Mr Tarantyev stay with you often?’ Oblomov asked.

‘He sometimes stays for a month. He is a great friend of my brother’s. They are always together.’

And she fell silent, having exhausted all her supply of ideas and words.

‘How quiet it is here!’ said Oblomov. ‘If it were not for the dog barking, one might think there was not a living soul here.’

She smiled in reply.

‘Do you often go out?’ asked Oblomov.

‘Occasionally, in summer. The other day, on a Friday, we went to the Gunpowder Works.’

‘Why, do many people go there?’ asked Oblomov, gazing through an opening in the shawl at her high bosom, firm as a sofa cushion and never agitated.

‘No, there weren’t many this year. It rained in the morning, but it cleared up later. Usually there are lots of people there.’

‘Where else do you go?’

‘Hardly anywhere. My brother goes fishing with Mr Tarantyev and makes fish soup there, but we are always at home.’

‘Not always, surely?’

‘Yes, indeed. Last year we went to Kolpino, and sometimes we go to the woods here. It’s my brother’s name-day on June 24th, and all his colleagues from the office come to dinner.’

‘Do you pay any visits?’

‘My brother does, but the children and I only go on Easter
Sunday and at Christmas to dinner with my husband’s relatives.’

There was nothing else to talk about.

‘I see you have flowers. Do you like them?’ he asked.

She smiled. ‘No,’ she said; ‘I have no time for flowers. The children and Akulina have been to the count’s garden and the gardener has given them these. The geraniums and the aloe have been here a long time – when my husband was still alive.’

At that moment Akulina suddenly burst into the room: a large cock was cackling and struggling desperately in her hands.

‘Is this the cock I am to give to the shopkeeper, ma’am?’ she asked.

‘Really, Akulina, go away!’ the landlady said, shamefacedly. ‘Can’t you see I have a visitor?’

‘I only came to ask,’ Akulina said, holding the cock by its feet head downwards. ‘He offers seventy copecks for it.’

‘Go back to the kitchen,’ said Agafya Matveyevna. ‘The grey speckled one, not that one,’ she added hurriedly, and blushed with shame, hiding her hands under the shawl and looking down.

‘Household cares!’ said Oblomov.

‘Yes. We have lots of hens and we sell eggs and chickens. The people from our street, in the summer cottages, and in the count’s house, buy them from us,’ she replied, looking at Oblomov much more boldly.

Her face assumed a business-like and thoughtful expression; even her vacant look disappeared when she talked about a subject she was familiar with. Any question that had nothing to do with what she was interested in, she answered with a smile and silence.

‘You ought to have sorted it out,’ Oblomov observed, pointing to the heap of his belongings.

‘I wanted to, but my brother told me not to touch it,’ she interrupted quickly, looking at Oblomov very boldly this time. ‘“Goodness knows what he has in his cupboards and tables,” he said, “if anything should be lost, he’ll never leave us alone.”’

She stopped and smiled.

‘What a careful man your brother is,’ Oblomov remarked.

She smiled faintly again and once more assumed her usual expression. Her smile was just a matter of form with her with which she disguised her ignorance of what to say or do in any given circumstance.