Oblomov (48 page)

‘I’m afraid I can’t wait for him,’ said Oblomov. ‘Will you be
so good as to tell him that, owing to a change in my circumstances, I no longer need the flat and therefore ask you to let it to somebody else? And I, for my part, will also try to find a tenant for you.’

She listened vacantly, blinking from time to time.

‘Will you please tell him that so far as our agreement is concerned – –’

‘But he isn’t at home now,’ she repeated. ‘You’d better come again to-morrow: It’s Saturday, and he does not go to the office.’

‘I’m sorry, but I’m terribly busy – I haven’t a moment to spare,’ Oblomov excused himself. ‘Be so good as to tell him that as the deposit will be yours and I would find you a tenant – –’

‘My brother isn’t at home,’ she said monotonously. ‘I don’t know why he isn’t back yet.’ She looked out into the street. ‘He usually walks past the windows and one can see him as he comes along, but he isn’t here!’

‘I’m afraid I must go,’ said Oblomov.

‘And what am I to tell my brother when he comes? When are you moving in?’ she asked, getting up from the sofa.

‘Tell him what I have asked you,’ Oblomov said. ‘Owing to my changed circumstances – –’

‘You had better come to-morrow and talk to him yourself,’ she repeated.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t come to-morrow.’

‘Well, the day after to-morrow, then, on Sunday. We usually have vodka and snacks after Mass. And Mr Tarantyev comes, too.’

‘Does he?’

‘Yes, indeed, he does,’ she said.

‘I’m afraid the day after to-morrow I can’t come either,’ Oblomov pleaded impatiently.

‘Next week, then,’ she said. ‘And when are you going to move in?’ she asked. ‘I’d have the floors scrubbed and the rooms dusted.’

‘I’m not going to move in,’ he said.

‘You aren’t? But what shall we do with your things?’

‘Will you kindly tell your brother,’ Oblomov began slowly, fixing his eyes straight on her bosom, ‘that owing to changed circumstances – –’

‘He’s very late to-day, I’m afraid, I can’t see him,’ she said monotonously, looking at the fence which divided the yard from the street. ‘I know his footsteps: I can recognize anyone
walking along the wooden pavement. Not many people walk here….’

‘So you will tell him what I said, won’t you?’ Oblomov said, bowing and walking to the door.

‘I’m sure he’ll be here himself in half an hour,’ the landlady said with an agitation which was quite unusual for her, as though trying to detain Oblomov with her voice.

‘I’m sorry, but I can’t wait any longer,’ he declared, opening the front door.

Seeing him on the steps, the dog began barking and trying to break its chain again. The driver, who had fallen asleep leaning on his elbow, began to back the horses; the hens again scattered in all directions in alarm; several heads peeped out of the windows.

‘So I’ll tell my brother that you called,’ the landlady said anxiously when Oblomov had sat down in the carriage.

‘Yes, and please tell him that because of changed circumstances I cannot keep the flat and that I’ll pass it on to somebody else or perhaps he might look for – –’

‘He usually comes home at this time,’ she said, listening absent-mindedly to him. ‘I’ll tell him that you intend to call again.’

‘Yes,’ said Oblomov, ‘I’ll call again in a few days.’

The carriage drove out of the yard to the accompaniment of the desperate barking of the dog and went swaying over the dried-up mounds of mud in the unpaved street. A middle-aged man in a shabby overcoat appeared at the end of it, with a big paper parcel under his arm, a thick stick in his hands, and rubber shoes on his feet in spite of the dry, hot day. He walked quickly, looking from side to side and stepping as heavily as though he meant to break through the wooden pavement. Oblomov turned round to look at him, and saw that he turned in at the gate of Mrs Pshenitzyn’s house.

‘That, I suppose, is her brother coming back,’ he concluded. ‘But to hell with him! I’d have had to spend an hour talking to him, and I’m hungry, and it’s so hot! Besides, Olga is waiting for me – another time.

‘Go on, faster!’ he said to the driver.

‘And what about going in search of another flat?’ he suddenly remembered, as he looked at the fences on either side of the road. ‘I must go back to Morskaya or Konyushennaya – another time!’ he decided.

‘Faster, driver, faster!’

3

A
T
the end of August it began to rain, and smoke came out of the chimneys of the summer cottages that had stoves, and the people in those that had not went about with kerchiefs tied round their heads; at last, all the summer cottages were gradually deserted.

Oblomov had not been to town again, and one morning the Ilyinskys’ furniture was carted and carried past his windows. Though to leave his flat, to dine out, and not lie down all day no longer seemed an heroic feat to him, he was now faced with the problem of how to spend the evenings. To remain alone in the country when the park and the woods were deserted and when Olga’s windows were shuttered seemed utterly impossible to him. He walked through her empty rooms, walked round the park, came down the hill, and his heart was oppressed with sadness. He told Zakhar and Anisya to go to Vyborg, where he decided to stay until he found another flat, and himself went to town, had a quick dinner at a restaurant, and spent the evening at Olga’s.

But autumn evenings in town were not like the long bright days and evenings in the park and the woods. In town he could not see her three times a day; there Katya did not run with a message to him, and he could not send Zakhar three miles with a note. In fact, all the flowering summer poem of their love seemed to have come to a stop, as though its subject-matter had run out. Sometimes they were silent for half an hour on end. Olga would be absorbed in her work, counting to herself the squares of the pattern with her needle, and he would be absorbed in a chaos of thoughts, living in a future that was far ahead of the present moment. Only at times, as he gazed intently at her, would he give a passionate start, or she would glance at him and smile, catching a glimpse of a tender look. He went to town and dined at Olga’s three days in succession under the pretext that his rooms were not ready yet, that he was going to move during the week and could not settle down in his new flat before that. But on the fourth day he felt that it would be improper to call again, and after walking up and down the pavement before Olga’s house for some time, he sighed and drove home. On the fifth day Olga told him to go to a certain shop where she would be and then walk back to her home with
her while the carriage followed them. All this was awkward: they met people they knew, they exchanged greetings, and some of them stopped for a chat.

‘Oh dear, how awful!’ he said, perspiring with apprehension and the awkwardness of the situation.

Olga’s aunt, too, looked at him with her large, languorous eyes, inhaling her smelling-salts thoughtfully, as though she had a headache. And what a long journey it was! Driving from Vyborg and back again in the evening took him three hours.

‘Let us tell your aunt,’ Oblomov insisted, ‘then I can stay with you all day and no one will say anything.’

‘But have you been to the courts?’ Olga asked.

Oblomov was greatly tempted to say that he had been there and done everything, but he knew that Olga had only to look at him searchingly to discover the lie in his face. He sighed in reply.

‘Oh, if you only knew how difficult it is!’ he said.

‘And have you spoken to your landlady’s brother? Have you found a flat?’ she asked afterwards, without raising her eyes.

‘He’s never at home in the morning, and in the evenings I am here,’ said Oblomov, glad to have found some satisfactory excuse.

Now Olga sighed, but said nothing.

‘I will most certainly speak to the landlady’s brother tomorrow,’ Oblomov tried to soothe her. ‘It is Sunday to-morrow and he won’t go to the office.’

‘Until all this is settled,’ Olga said reflectively, ‘we can’t tell Auntie and we must not see so much of each other.’

‘Yes, yes – that’s true,’ he added hastily in alarm.

‘You’d better dine with us on Sundays, our at home day, and then, say, on Wednesdays, alone,’ she decided. ‘And on other days we can meet at the theatre. I’ll let you know when we are going and you to come.’

‘Yes, that’s true,’ he said, glad that she took upon herself the arrangement of their future meetings.

‘And if it’s a fine day,’ she concluded, ‘I’ll go for a walk in the Summer Gardens and you can come there. That will remind us of the park – the park!’ she repeated with feeling.

He kissed her hand in silence and said good-bye to her till Sunday. She followed him with her eyes sadly, then sat down at the piano and became absorbed in the strains of the music. Her heart was weeping for something, and the notes, too, wept. She wanted to sing, but could not bring herself to.

When he got up on the following morning, Oblomov put on
the indoor coat he used to wear in the country cottage. He had parted with his dressing-gown long ago, having given orders to put it away in the wardrobe. Zakhar walked clumsily to the table with the coffee and rolls, holding the tray unsteadily in his hands as usual. Anisya, also as usual, thrust her head through the door to see whether Zakhar would carry the cups safely to the table and hid herself noiselessly as soon as Zakhar put down the tray on the table or rushed up to him quickly if he dropped something, so as to save the others from falling. When this happened Zakhar began to swear first at the things, then at his wife, making as if to hit her in the chest with his elbow.

‘What excellent coffee! Who makes it?’ Oblomov asked.

‘The landlady herself, sir,’ said Zakhar. ‘She’s been making it for the last five days. “You’re putting in too much chicory and don’t boil it enough – let me do it,” she said.’

‘Excellent,’ Oblomov repeated, pouring himself another cup, ‘Thank her.’

‘Here she is herself,’ said Zakhar, pointing to the half-open door of a side room. ‘That must be their pantry, I expect. She works there. They keep sugar, tea, and coffee there as well as the crockery.’

Oblomov could see only the landlady’s back, the back of her head, a bit of her white neck, and her bare elbows.

‘Why is she moving her elbows about so rapidly there?’ asked Oblomov.

‘I’m sure I don’t know, sir. Must be making lace, I expect.’

Oblomov watched her as she moved her elbows, bent her back, and straightened out again. When she bent down, he could see her clean petticoat and stockings, and her round, firm legs.

‘A civil servant’s widow, but she has elbows fit for a countess, and with dimples, too!’ Oblomov thought.

At midday, Zakhar came to ask if he would like to taste their pie: the landlady had sent it to him with her compliments.

‘It’s Sunday, sir, and they’re baking a pie to-day.’

‘I can imagine the sort of pie it is,’ Oblomov said carelessly. ‘With carrots and onions!’

‘No, sir,’ Zakhar said, ‘it’s not worse than ours at Oblomovka – with chickens and fresh mushrooms.’

‘Oh, that must be nice: bring me some! Who does the baking? That dirty peasant woman?’

‘Not her!’ Zakhar said scornfully. ‘If it wasn’t for her mistress, she wouldn’t know how to mix the dough. She’s always in
the kitchen, the landlady is. She and Anisya baked the pie, sir.’

Five minutes later a bare arm, scarcely covered with the shawl he had already seen, was thrust through the door of the side-room, holding a plate with a huge piece of steaming hot pie.

‘Thank you very much,’ Oblomov cried, accepting the pie, and glancing through the door, he fixed his eyes upon the enormous bosom and bare shoulders. The door was hastily closed.

‘Wouldn’t you like some vodka?’ the voice asked.

‘Thank you, I don’t drink,’ Oblomov said, still more affably. ‘What kind have you?’

‘Our own home-made one,’ the voice said. ‘We infuse it from currant leaves ourselves.’

‘I’ve never drunk a currant-leaf liqueur,’ said Oblomov. ‘Please let me try it.’

The bare arm was thrust through the door again with a glass of vodka on a plate. Oblomov drank it and liked it very much.

‘Thank you very much,’ he said, trying to peep through the door, but the door was slammed to.

‘Why don’t you let me have a look at you and wish you good morning?’ Oblomov reproached her.

The landlady smiled behind the door. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m still wearing my everyday dress: I’ve been in the kitchen all the time, you see. I’ll dress presently, and my brother will soon be coming from Mass,’ she replied.

‘Oh,
à propos
of your brother,’ Oblomov observed. ‘I’d like to have a talk with him. Tell him I want to see him, please.’

‘All right, I’ll tell him when he comes.’

‘And who is it coughing?’ Oblomov asked. ‘What a dry cough!’

‘It’s Granny. She’s been coughing for the last seven years.’

And the door was slammed to.

‘How – how simple she is,’ Oblomov thought. ‘And there is something about her. And she is very clean, too!’

He had not met the landlady’s brother yet. Every now and then early in the morning, when he was still in bed, he caught sight of a man with a large paper parcel under his arm rushing off on the other side of the fence and disappearing in the street; at five o’clock the same man with the paper parcel rushed past the windows and disappeared behind the front door. He was never heard in the house. And yet there could be no doubt, especially in the mornings, that the house was full of people: there was a clatter of knives in the kitchen; the peasant woman could be heard rinsing something in a corner of the yard; the
caretaker was chopping wood or bringing the barrel of water; through the wall the children could be heard crying, or there came the sound of the old woman’s dry, persistent cough.

Oblomov had the four best rooms in the house. The landlady and her family occupied the two back rooms, and her brother lived upstairs in the attic. Oblomov’s study and bedroom looked out into the yard, the drawing-room faced the little garden, and the reception-room the big kitchen garden with the cabbages and potatoes. At the drawing-room windows the curtains were of faded chintz. Plain chairs, in imitation walnut, were placed along the walls; a card-table stood under the looking-glass; on the window-sills were pots of geranium and African marigold, and four cages with siskins and canaries hung in the windows.