Oblomov (7 page)

‘Go there in this damp weather?’ Oblomov said lazily. ‘What do you expect to see there? It’s going to rain, too, it’s so dull outside.’

‘There’s not a cloud in the sky and you talk of rain! It looks so dull because your windows haven’t been cleaned for ages! Look at the dirt on them! You can’t see a thing here, and one curtain is almost closed.’

‘I daresay, but just try to say a word about it to Zakhar and he’ll at once suggest engaging charwomen and driving me out of the house for a whole day!’

Oblomov sank into thought, and Alexeyev sat at the table drumming on it with his finger-tips and gazing absent-mindedly at the walls and the ceiling.

‘So what are we going to do?’ he asked a few minutes later. ‘Are you going to dress or do you stay as you are?’

‘Why?’

‘What about Yekaterinhof?’

‘What on earth are you so anxious about Yekaterinhof for – really!’ Oblomov cried vexatiously. ‘Can’t you stay here? Are you cold here or is there a bad smell in the room that you’re so anxious to get out?’

‘Why, no,’ said Alexeyev; ‘I’m not complaining. I’m always very happy here.’

‘Well, if you are, why are you so anxious to be somewhere else? Why not stay here with me for the day? We’ll have dinner and in the evening you may go where you like. Oh dear, I’ve forgotten: I can’t possibly go out! Tarantyev is coming to dinner: it’s Saturday.’

‘Well, of course, I don’t mind. I’ll do as you wish,’ said Alexeyev.

‘I haven’t told you anything about my affairs, have I?’ Oblomov asked quickly.

‘What affairs? I don’t know anything,’ said Alexeyev, staring at him in surprise.

‘Why do you think I haven’t got up all this time? You see, I’ve been lying here trying to find some way out of my troubles.’

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Alexeyev, trying to look alarmed.

‘Two misfortunes! I don’t know what to do.’

‘What misfortunes?’

‘They’re driving me out of my flat. Just imagine it – I must move: the upset, the breakages-the mere thought of it frightens me – I have lived here for eight years, you know. My landlord has played a dirty trick on me. Hurry up and move, he says.’

‘Hurry up! That means he wants your flat badly. Moving is a great nuisance – a very troublesome business,’ said Alexeyev. ‘They’re sure to lose and break things – such an infernal nuisance! And you have such a nice flat.… What rent do you pay?’

‘Where am I to find another such flat?’ Oblomov went on; ‘and in a hurry, too? Dry and warm; a nice quiet house; we’ve had only one burglary here. The ceiling, it is true, doesn’t look quite safe – the plaster is bulging – but it hasn’t come down yet.’

‘Fancy that!’ said Alexeyev, shaking his head.

‘I wonder if there is anything I could do so that I – needn’t move?’ Oblomov remarked pensively, as though speaking to himself.

‘Have you got your flat on a lease?’ Alexeyev asked, examining the room from floor to ceiling.

‘Yes, but the lease has expired: I’ve been paying the rent monthly for some time – don’t remember for how long.’

‘Well, what do you intend to do?’ Alexeyev asked after a short pause. ‘Are you going to move or not?’

‘I don’t intend to do anything,’ said Oblomov. ‘I don’t want even to think of it. Let Zakhar think of something.’

‘But, you know, some people like moving,’ said Alexeyev. ‘Changing flats seems to be their only pleasure in life.’

‘Well, let them move, then,’ Oblomov retorted. ‘For my part, I can’t stand any changes! But the flat’s nothing – you’d better have a look at what my bailiff writes to me! Here, I’ll show you his letter – where the devil is it? Zakhar! Zakhar!’

‘Mother of God!’ Zakhar wheezed to himself, jumping off his stove. ‘When will the good Lord put an end to my troubles?’ He came in and looked dully at his master.

‘Why haven’t you found the letter?’

‘Where am I to find it, sir? I don’t even know which letter you want. I can’t read, can I?’

‘Never mind, look for it,’ said Oblomov.

‘You were reading some letter last night, sir,’ said Zakhar, ‘but I haven’t seen it since.’

‘Where is it then?’ Oblomov asked with vexation. ‘I haven’t swallowed it, have I? I remember very well that you took it from me and put it somewhere. There it is – look!’

He shook the blanket and the letter fell on the floor out of its folds.

‘Aye, I’m always the one what gets the blame for everything!’

‘All right, all right,’ Oblomov and Zakhar shouted at each other at the same time. ‘Go – go!’

Zakhar went out, and Oblomov began reading the letter, which seemed to have been written in
kvas
on grey paper and sealed with brownish sealing-wax. Enormous pale letters followed in solemn procession, without touching each other, along an oblique line from the top to the bottom corner of the page. The procession was occasionally interrupted by a huge pale blot.

‘Dear Sir,’ Oblomov began, ‘our father and benefactor –’ Here he omitted several greetings and good wishes and went on from the middle: ‘I am glad to inform you, Sir, that everything on your estate is in good order. There has been no rain for five weeks and I daresay, Sir, the good Lord must be angry with us not to send us rain. The old men don’t remember such a drought, Sir. The spring crops have all been burnt up as if by a devouring fire; the winter crops have been ruined, some by the worm and some by early frost; we have ploughed it over for spring crops, but we can’t be sure if it will be any good. Let us
hope, Sir, that merciful heaven will spare you; we do not care what happens to us – let us all starve to death. On St John’s Eve three more peasants ran away: Laptev, Balochov, and Vasska, the blacksmith’s son, who ran off by himself. I sent the women after their husbands, but they never came back, and are living at Cholki, I am told. A relative of mine went to Cholki from Verkhlyovo, the estate manager sent him there to inspect a foreign plough. I told him about the runaway peasants. He said he had been to see the police inspector who told him to send in a written statement, after which everything would be done to send the peasants back to their places of domicile. He said nothing except that, and I fell at his feet and begged him with tears in my eyes, but he bawled at me at the top of his voice: “Be off! Be off with you! I’ve told you it will be done if you send in your signed statement!” But I never did send in the statement. There is no one I can hire here; all have gone to the Volga, to work on the barges – the people here have all become so stupid, Sir. There will be no linen of ours at the fair this year: I have locked up the drying and the bleaching sheds and put Sychuga to watch them day and night; he never touches a drop, and to make sure he don’t steal any of his master’s goods, I watch over him day and night. The other peasants drink a lot and they are all anxious to pay rent for their land instead of working on your land without any payment. Many of them have not paid up their arrears. This year, Sir, we will send you about two thousand less than last year, unless the drought ruins us completely, otherwise we shall send you the money as promised.’

There followed expressions of loyalty and the signature: ‘Your bailiff and most humble slave, Sir, Prokofy Vytyagush-kin, has put his hand to it with his own hand.’ Being illiterate he put a cross under the letter. ‘Written from the words of the said bailiff by his brother-in-law, Dyomka the One-Eyed.’

Oblomov glanced at the end of the letter. ‘No month or year,’ he said. ‘I suppose the letter must have been lying about at the bailiff’s since last year – St John’s Eve and the drought! Just woken up to it!’ He sank into thought. ‘Well?’ he went on. ‘What do you make of it? He offers to send me about two thousand less – how much will that leave? How much do you think I received last year?’ he asked, looking at Alexeyev. ‘I didn’t mention it to you at the time, did I?’

Alexeyev raised his eyes to the ceiling and pondered.

‘I must ask Stolz when he comes,’ Oblomov continued. ‘Seven or eight thousand, I believe – I should have made a note of it!
So now he puts me down to six! Why, I shall starve! How can I live on it?’

‘Why worry?’ said Alexeyev. ‘A man must never give way to despair. It will all come right in the end.’

‘But did you hear what he said? He doesn’t send me the money – oh no! He doesn’t say anything to put my mind at rest. All he is thinking of is to cause me unpleasantness, and he does it deliberately! Every year the same story! I simply don’t know what to do! Two thousand less!’

‘Yes, it’s a great loss!’ said Alexeyev. ‘Two thousand is no joke! Alexey Login, I understand, also got twelve instead of seventeen thousand this year.’

‘Twelve thousand isn’t six thousand,’ Oblomov interrupted him. ‘The bailiff has thoroughly upset me! If all this is really true – I mean, the bad harvest and the drought, then why has he to worry me before the proper time?’

‘Well, of course,’ Alexeyev began, ‘he shouldn’t have done that. But you can’t expect a peasant to have nice feelings, can you? That sort of man doesn’t understand anything.’

‘But what would you do in my place?’ asked Oblomov, looking questioningly at Alexeyev in the vain hope that he might think of something to allay his fears.

‘This requires careful thought,’ said Alexeyev. ‘It’s impossible to decide at once.’

‘Ought I to write to the Governor, I wonder?’ Oblomov said, musingly.

‘Who is your Governor?’ asked Alexeyev.

Oblomov did not reply and sank into thought. Alexeyev fell silent and also pondered.

Crumpling the letter in his hands, Oblomov propped up his head on them and, resting his elbows on his knees, sat like that for some time, tormented by an onrush of profitless thoughts.

‘I wish Stolz would hurry up and come,’ he said. ‘He writes to say he’s coming soon, meanwhile he’s rushing about goodness only knows where. He’d settle it all!’

He again stared sadly about him. They were both silent a long time. Oblomov was the first to rouse himself at last.

‘That’s what has to be done,’ he said resolutely and almost got out of bed. ‘And it must be done as soon as possible. No use wasting any more time. First – –’

At that moment there was a desperate ring at the front door, so that Oblomov and Alexeyev both gave a start and Zakhar at once jumped off the stove.

3

A
T HOME
’ someone in the hall asked loudly and gruffly.

‘Where would he go at this hour?’ Zakhar replied, more gruffly still.

A man of about forty came into the room. He was of massive build, tall, broad-shouldered, bulky, with a large head and big features, a short, thick neck, large protruding eyes, and full lips. A glance at him made one think of something coarse and untidy. It was clear that he made no attempt at dressing elegantly. It was not often that one saw him clean-shaven. But he did not seem to care; he was not ashamed of his clothes, and wore them with a kind of cynical dignity.

It was Mikhey Andreyich Tarantyev, a country neighbour of Oblomov.

Tarantyev looked at everything morosely, with ill-disguised contempt and open hostility towards the world at large; he was ready to abuse everyone and everything as though he had suffered some injustice or had been offended in his dignity, or like a man of strong character persecuted by destiny and submitting to it under protest and unwillingly. His gestures were bold and sweeping; he spoke in a loud voice, glibly and almost always angrily; listening to him from a distance one got the impression of three empty carts going over a bridge. He was never put out by anyone’s presence, was never at a loss for a word, and was generally rude to everyone, including his friends, as though making it clear that he bestowed a great honour on a person by talking to him or having dinner or supper at his place.

Tarantyev was a man of quick and cunning intelligence; no one could solve some practical question or some complicated legal problem better than he; he would at once devise his own theory of how it was best to act in the circumstances and would adduce very subtle arguments in favour of it, and in conclusion almost always be rude to the person who had asked his advice.

And yet, having obtained the job of a clerk in some government office twenty-five years before, he remained there in the same post till his hair began to turn grey. It never occurred to him or to anyone else that he might get higher up in the service.

The trouble was that Tarantyev was good only at talking; in words he settled everything simply and easily, especially where
other people were concerned; but as soon as he had to move a finger or stir from his place – in short, apply his own theory in practice and show efficiency and expedition – he became an entirely different person; he was unable to rise to the occasion, he suddenly became dejected or unwell or awkward, or he found he had something else to do, which he did not do, either; or if he did, he made an unholy mess of it. He behaved just like a child: he overlooked something, or showed himself to be ignorant of the merest trifles, or was late for an appointment, or threw up the business half-way, or began at the wrong end and bungled it in such a way that it was quite impossible to put it right – and finally he would blame everybody but himself for his own incompetence.

His father, an old-fashioned provincial lawyer, had meant his son to inherit his skill and experience of looking after other people’s affairs and his professional ability at the Bar; but fate decided otherwise. The father, who was too poor to pay for a good education, did not want his son to lag behind the times and wished him to learn something besides the tricky business of legal practice. He sent him for three years to a priest to learn Latin.

The boy was gifted by nature, and in three years he mastered Latin grammar and syntax and had just begun to construe Cornelius Nepos when his father decided that he had already acquired enough knowledge to give him an enormous advantage over the older generation and that, indeed, any further studies might interfere with his practice in court.

Not knowing what to do with his Latin, the sixteen-year-old Mikhey began to forget it in his father’s house, but in the meantime, while waiting for the honour of attending the rural or the district court, he went to all his father’s merry parties, and in this school, amid the frank exchanges of opinions, the young man’s mind developed most thoroughly. He listened with the impressionability of youth to the stories told by his father and his cronies of various civil and criminal actions and of curious cases which passed through the hands of these old-fashioned lawyers. But all this led to nothing. Mikhey did not become a business man and a pettifogging lawyer in spite of his father’s efforts, which would of course have been successful had not fate ruined all his well-laid plans. Mikhey certainly mastered the whole theory on which his father’s talks were based; he had merely to put it into practice, but his father’s death prevented him from qualifying for the Bar and he was taken to Petersburg
by some benefactor who found him a clerk’s job in a government office and then forgot all about him.